The Walking Dead: Undead Kingdom
by SteakEater96
Summary: Follow Ricky, as he tries to survive the zombie apocalypse. A story filled with friendships and betrayals, as Ricky will make alliances and be pursued relentlessly, not just by the dead, but the living.
1. Chapter 1: On The Run

"Damn!" I whispered as I ran. I was hauling a pickaxe behind me. It was heavy but had proven an effective weapon thus far.

"Fucking shoot him!" A voice yelled from behind me. A shot rung past my head. I yelled in fear. Fuck, I refuse to get killed here. I heard a groan from ahead of me. A walker limped out from an alleyway. My initial reaction was to swing my pickaxe. It hit the walker square in the head. I yanked it out and continued to run. I zig-zagg-ed slightly, to try and make it harder for them to shoot me. One of them shouted "Stop shooting randomly you dipshits! We don't have that much ammo!" I looked behind me and saw walkers start to speed up towards the pursuers. Thank God! I might actually get a break if one of these zombies could get the chomp on some of them.

I quickly turned a corner into an alleyway, hoping to lose the pursuing bandits. There was an open window at the side of the alleyway. I mantled into the open window. To be safe, I continued to run across the room and up the stairs of the building. I arrived at a landing, with a slight walled area, acting as a place for a banister to rest. I ducked behind there and listened. I heard the thumping of feet, but had slowly began to diminish as they faded into the distance. Looking around, I decided to investigate the house.

I slowly opened a door. It was a nicely decorated bedroom. I looked behind me at the walls beside the door. There were two decaying corpses there, one missing a head, the other had been smashed in. I shook my head slowly. What a world. My first reaction was to see what I could find. I opened a draw, where I saw a gun. I smiled. I broke lucky to find one of these. It may have been a pistol, but who cared? I unloaded the gun and peered into the magazine. My face dropped. It was empty. Sighing, I threw the gun away. There was no point in holding on to something I couldn't use. I hoped I could find something to replace this pickaxe. The weight was insane, and it was slowing me down. I looked into a wardrobe. Who knew what was in there? I'd kept a decorative sword in my wardrobe, due to not having the time to display it, so there was a possibility of anything being in there. Upon opening the wardrobe, I was disappointed. Nothing. I sighed and moved on.

I walked to the next room. I moved my hand towards the handle, but I heard a shuffle behind the door, and deep breathing. I froze. This wasn't walker mentality. There was a human in this room. I heard a sniffing sound. Was this person crying? I didn't want to provoke anyone and get myself killed. I took a deep breath, and followed it with a slow exhale. "Hello?" I said softly. All noise had ceased in the room. I returned this with more silence. I decided to break the silence. "Look, I know someone is in there," I said, remaining soft voiced, "I won't hurt you, I mean no harm." There was more silence.

"I heard you outside... You were shooting at someone..." the voice behind the door said in an equally soft voice. It was feminine. I shook my head. "Actually, you heard me getting shot at. Are you okay?" I said. I heard another shuffle and a few steps. The handle turned. Before me stood a girl, she looked the same age as me, around sixteen to seventeen. She was stained with blood, her blonde hair tangled with red in it. I smiled, trying to look kind. She held a metal baseball bat, or what looked like one. It had been distorted, as if bashed against something with immense force.

She noticed my smile, and so she wiped her eyes and returned it. "Are you okay?" I repeated, still remaining soft voiced. She shook her head. She moved aside, beckoning me inside. I entered. There were four corpses, decayed, with a pile of cans in the corner, both for foods and soft drinks. There were water bottles too. I looked back at her. She rubbed the back of the neck, facing the ground. I put my hand on her shoulder, as to comfort her. She clearly registered this and looked up at me. "Let's get you out of here," I whispered. She shook her head again.

"I refuse to, not with this," she replied, looking at her bat. I looked at it too. The protrusions would make for extra damage.

"You're weapon is pretty good, actually," I said. She shook her head.

"I can't." Her voice was firm. I nodded.

"Who were the corpses?" I asked. She shrugged.

"These were random people." I looked at the direction of the other room. "They were my parents." I froze. I looked back at her. I had the privilege of not seeing my family since the outbreak (though I use the term privilege very loosely). Her eyes began to water up. I rubbed her arm, hoping to console her. "What's your name?" I asked. She wiped her eyes again, and looked at me again.

"Raven..." She said.

"Raven," I repeated. "It's a very nice name." She smiled, flattered.

"What's your name?" She asked, "I haven't talked to anyone since this all started."

"I'm Ricky," I said simply. She nodded. "We really need to get out of here..."

She dropped her bat and opened a third and final room, where a final corpse remained. It was young. Raven looked at it. I looked around. There was a rack of three swords on a chest of drawers. She grabbed one of them and handed it to me. "That looks heavy," she said looking at my pick. I nodded.

"Thank you," I said, taking the sword and leaving the pickaxe against a wall, next to the baseball bat. I looked at her. "Aren't you going to take one?" She nodded her head. She took a slightly smaller one off the rack, and opened the bottom draw. She threw out some shirts. "Take some of the shirts," I said. She looked at me confused. "We can tear them up and make wraps to act as bandages," I informed her. She looked at the pile of shirts and nodded. She opened a wardrobe and took out a backpack, and stuffed the shirts into it. She found two weapon belts too. She handed me one. I put it on and attached my sword to it. "He was a real weapon freak," Raven said, smiling whilst tears ran down her cheek. "Who knew that it'd save me," she said. I assumed it was a younger sibling, and I didn't want to upset her any more by asking. She walked out of the room to the other end of the landing. She opened a door to a bathroom and shut it. I assumed she wouldn't want the intrusion, so I waited outside and sat against the wall beside the stairs. I waited for maybe half an hour. I heard running water, and a few inhalations of pain. She walked out, clean. Her hair was no longer tangled, so I assume the pain was her brushing her hair, since I didn't hear any plugs. I smiled at her. She looked cute like this, though her eyes were still slightly red from the tears. "Let's get out of here," she said. I nodded in approval. She lead me to the front door, and she looked through the letter slot to see what was outside. She shook her head. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Look," she whispered. I did, and it was the bandits again. I slowly let the mail slot down. I looked to the open window. I put my hand on her shoulder to get her attention. She looked at me, as I pointed to the window. She nodded and walked towards it. I peered out first, and no one was there. I nodded at her, and she nodded back. We both mantled out and ran down the alleyway. We ran out the other side and ended up at another area of the city.

I didn't know where we were at all. I looked at Raven. "What is this place, anyway?" I asked. She looked at me confused.

"You mean this place specifically? The whole city?" She asked.

"The whole city," I clarified. She nodded.

"Nottingham." She replied. I was shocked. I had walked all this way since the outbreak started. All the way from Sheffield. I nodded. We continued to walk on the edge of the street we had arrived at, in the shadows. All of a sudden, I was yanked backwards. "There you are, you fucking dick!" The person who pulled me shouted. He rammed a knife into my arm. I cried out in pain. Raven turned around and looked horrified. She drew her sword and sliced at the man's head. She sliced part way into his head, before yanking it out. I fell to the floor, grasping my arm, breathing heavily. It was a scary experience. I looked at Raven. "Thank you. So much." I said, legitimately thankful. She smiled and knelt down beside me. "Ricky, let me see your arm." I nodded and held it out. She looked at my arm. "Shall I pull it out?" She asked. I shook my head.

"It's acting as a plug for the blood," I replied, "leave it be for now." We heard footsteps storming down the alley we exited from.

"Shouting from over here!" The bandits shouted.

"Shit," I whispered. I looked at Raven. "We have to run, now," I said, sternly. She nodded and helped me up. We sprinted. I saw Raven stumble and almost fall forward, but I quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her back up into running position. We heard screams and gunfire from behind. I looked over my shoulder and smiled with relief. A horde of walkers had swarmed the bandits, and they were struggling to fend them off. "Just a bit more Raven, and we'll be out of here," I said. She nodded, breathing heavily.

We slowed down to a halt and looked behind us. There was still screams, screams of agony, but the gunshots had stopped. "They aren't being..." Raven started. I nodded.

"The walkers got them..." She looked at me with a smile.

"I've never been so relieved to hear someone get eaten..." I nodded again, returning the smile. She looked at my arm again. "We need to get that sorted."

"We should, ideally," I said in agreement, "but not here, we should get to a safe spot first." She nodded. We continued to walk, until a man edged out of an alleyway, holding out a pistol at us. "We've got you, you fucking scum." I stopped, petrified. Raven's eyes widened, and looked at the pistol. She hid behind me, shivering. "You aren't with them behind us, are you?" I asked. He froze for a second. "Don't do this bullshit with me, YOU'RE with them." I paused for another second. Raven edged away from behind my back. "Actually, we were just chased by them. They've just been eaten," she said. The man lowered his pistol slightly, to his hip. After a second, he held the gun back up, as if he had made a wrong judgement. "Get the fuck away, now." I nodded, and began to walk. Raven followed. I looked behind me to see the man. A few more people emerged from the alley and began to whisper. The man ran to us, and as he came close, he said "Hey! Wait a minute!" We did and turned around. "You're clearly fine," he said, "come to our base, you could probably do with some help," he said, looking at the knife in my arm. I nodded, and Raven smiled.

"Thank you," I said. He shook his head.

"It's nothing. Sorry for the behaviour back there," he responded. He stuck out his hand. "Garrett," he said. I took it and shook it. "I'm Ricky." He looked at Raven. "She's Raven." She smiled slightly and waved. He seemed older, maybe later twenties, early thirties.

"Come with me," he said, "You can sort out your arm there," he replied. We all set off to the base.


	2. Chapter 2: Raven

Whilst travelling, we learned about our travel group. There was Garrett, of course, and two others had emerged from the alleyway, and it turned out they had scolded Garrett for being a 'Raging Dipshit,' clarifying to him that me and Raven were clearly not bandits. They were Grant and Damien. We had a relatively peaceful journey. "Hey, Ricky was it?" Grant asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Why are them bandits after you, bud?" He said.  
"I needed food," I said, "I found a building and it had some stowed in there. It seemed inhabited, but I was desperate. I got caught on the way out." Raven looked at me whilst saying this.

"When did this happen?" She asked. I looked at her.

"A day ago," I replied. She nodded at this. Damien looked at Raven.

"How long have you two been travelling together?" Damien asked. Raven paused for a second.

"Maybe a few hours ago?" She said. Damien looked at her, then to me. He nodded then faced back to ahead of him.

We rested for a while. I sat down with Raven. She looked at my arm, before reaching into her bag and taking one of the shirts. She ripped it and held her hand out. "Give me your arm," she said. I held it out. Grant, Damien and Garrett watched us. I yanked out the knife, and Raven began to wrap tightly. She'd finished off, and looked at me. "There, that's better," she said. I smiled.

"Thank you," I said. She returned the smile.

"It's fine, it's nice to know I could be of help," she said.

We approached the base. There were two guards, standing beside a gate, which led to what seemed like a school building, and they cocked rifles at me and Raven. "Weapons, give them to us." I glared at him. I wasn't giving up my weapon before going into an area that I didn't know a thing about.

"We worked hard to get these," I said. Raven nodded in agreement. One of the guards put a gun to my face.

"Weapons. Now!" He shouted. Grant glared at the guard.

"Back the fuck off, man, they're cool. They pose no threat." The guard looked at Grant.

"I'm not disputing that, we need to be sure though," this guard said. Raven chimed in,

"Please, they've got emotional attachment to them too," she said, "they're my brother's." The guard sustained his poise.

"Can you vouch for this?" The guard said to me. "And how did you 'work hard for them'?" I was about to speak, but Raven interrupted.

"He turned... My Brother... We had too..." Raven stopped, and a tear rolled down her cheek. No one could feign tears like that. This lie clearly hurt her. The guard lowered his guard. He looked to me again.

"Y-you vouch?" I nodded. The guards opened the gate and let us in.

It was a school building, and it was fairly fancy looking too. "This school was getting upgraded and stuff," Grant started, "there was a lot of construction stuff left around too. Really helped with fortification." I nodded. Raven came closer to me, shivering. She rubbed her eyes again. The tears were legitimate, then. Garrett led us into a big building that seemed to be the reception area.

"You guys okay with sharing a room between each other?" I looked at Raven. She nodded. I looked back to Garrett. "Yeah, we'll be fine." Garrett nodded.

"Okay, come with me, I'll guide you to your room after I show you around the place." Garrett showed us around. We were shown where each classroom was, and what they were re-purposed to do.

We were led to a classroom. He opened the door. It was incredibly small. "I guess this was used as a 'Student Support' One-on-one thing," he said, "it makes sense, couldn't see a room this small being used for a class." Garrett smiled at us. "Anyhow, I'll leave you to your own devices. It'll be getting dark soon, so I recommend against going outside, okay?" I nodded.

"Okay, thanks Garrett," I replied. Raven nodded in agreement.

We entered the room, and we found two sleeping bags. We sat down on our sleeping bags. Raven looked at me. "Thank you," she said. I looked at her.

"What for?" I asked.

"You found me. I was stuck there, scared shitless, and you found me, and helped me," she said. I smiled at her.

"It's honestly no problem," I said. I looked back on the day, and realised everything she had to go through. She killed her parents, and apparently her brother. He looked at her. "When you were covering us for our weapons, did you really do that?" She nodded. I looked at her. She's been sad, that's natural, but she's sane. If I had to kill my family, I certainly wouldn't be as sane as her. She's strong. She looked at me and I gave her a comforting smile, and she returned a sort of smile. She began to cry again. It's only been a few hours, since we met, but I could tell that being stuck with the corpses of her family since the outbreak began was very hard on her. Was that a week ago? God knows. I haven't kept track. The first death in the apocalypse, especially that of a loved one, is rough. The death of all your loved ones at once? She was handling it very well. I had a question for her though. "Why didn't you take the bat with you?" I asked. She looked at me.

"I killed all of my family with it..." she said, with tears starting to roll down her eyes. I imagined it would have reminded her of her family, and that she had to be the one to kill them. She was about to finish her explanation, but I stopped her,

"don't worry, I think I understand." She nodded, and put her hands in her face as she began to cry. I stopped to think for a second, should I console her? If so, how?

My conclusion was that I should, so I put my hand on her shoulder. She looked at me. For a second, I felt somewhat awkward, but then she slowly hugged me. She wiped her eyes, and then looked up at me. She let go. "I'm sorry," she said, "I must be coming across as really annoying, I've done nothing but cry, so far." She continued to rub. I looked at her sympathetically.

"Don't worry about it," I said, "and you aren't annoying at all. You're stricken, as you rightfully should be." She smiled.

"You know, I didn't have much time left," she started, "when the outbreak started, we were fine, we survived for about two days, and it was like nothing had changed. Until a group of looters broke in through that window you found. They opened it from the outside. We tried to fight them off, and we ran upstairs. My Mum and Dad hid away in their room. One of them walked in and apparently, they bludgeoned him. He collapsed, but didn't die immediately. I killed two of them with my bat, and my brother killed the fourth, but a walker had broke in through the same window and killed my brother, and so I killed it. Then they all came back. One at a time, thank Lord. I took a swing at my Mum when she came back, but she'd decayed faster, her head came..." I assumed the corpse with a missing head was her mum. "And my Dad didn't, his head was hard, and it took so many hits to take him out. My brother took a smash to the head, and it just... crushed..." I shook my head. The deaths sounded so brutal, and a tear formed in my eye. She was the only person I talked to since the outbreak started, and she's had a terrible time. Thankfully, I was still retaining my humanity. I hadn't hardened to the terrors of this new world, but I felt human. She looked at me. "I'm sorry, I don't think I want to talk about this any more." I nodded.

"Okay, that's understandable. What did you do before this all started?" I asked, trying to change the subject and take her mind off the horrible time she's had. She wiped her eyes and smiled at me.

"I went here, there's a sixth-form college here, and I was in my first year. I couldn't wait to leave here, but now, I'd love it. I miss the normality, and it's only be a week." I looked at her.

"So you're, what, seventeen?" I asked. She nodded.

"How old are you?" Raven asked.

"Same as you, seventeen," I said. She smiled.

"It's nice to have a friend in this kind of situation," she said, "especially one my age." I smiled and nodded.

"It makes it easier to relate," I said. She nodded in agreement.

"I'm tired," she said, "shall we sleep?" I shrugged.

"If you like, I'm not all that tired, so I'll stay up for a while." She nodded. "I'll be right back," I said. She nodded and laid down.

I went to what basically was the place's social hub. It was originally a library, and they had all sorts of books there. I took a book that seemed interesting, and began to walk back, until I bumped into Garrett. "Hey man!" He said. I smiled.

"Hey," I said. He looked at me, up and down.

"You've got a book," he said. I nodded.

"I do have a book," I responded. He smiled.

"D'you like reading?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. He raised is head in acknowledgement, before lowering it again.

"No one here really read for fun before the outbreak, now it's primarily a thing to soothe people, calm them down," Garrett said. He followed up with the question, "How's Raven?" I looked at him for a second before responding.

"She's... I don't know... Sad, for starters, when I met her, she had killed her family, so that's a factor, but she seems to trust me. She opened up to me and told me pretty much everything. I've been consoling her, and I seem to be doing well." Garrett nodded.

"One more thing, was the story about your katanas true? Did she kill someone for them?" He asked, looking at my sword.

"Kind of..." I replied, "She did kill her brother, but not for the weapons. It was because he turned." Garrett nodded.

"Why didn't you forfeit your weapons?" He asked. I thought for a second.

"We didn't know how fortified you'd be, and we'd prefer to feel safe." Garrett nodded.

"Don't fucking lie like that again. Who knows what you can do with them." I hesitated at this. "You understand?" I nodded.

"Yeah," I said. Garrett stared at my katana.

"I won't compromise your bullshit story by taking them off you, and I won't tell anyone you lied, but you don't do anything else that could put us in danger," he said. I nodded again, in acknowledgement. As he walked off I shook my head. I'm sure he would have done the exact same thing. I walked back to the room, and Raven was sleeping in her sleeping bag, with mine next to hers. I paused for a second, should I leave it there? I don't want to come across as a weird pervert or anything by sleeping that close to her. I moved my sleeping bag to the other side of the room, and read for around half an hour, before sleeping.

The morning came and I woke up. I looked over at Raven, and she was sat there, with the book I was reading. I smiled at her. "Morning," I said. She looked up at me and smiled,

"Hey," she replied, "it's a good book." She looked back down. I nodded at her. She seemed about half way through.

"Shit, how long have you been reading?" I asked.

"Since about, 3AM?" She said, unsure. It was a pretty thick book.

"What time is it now?" I asked. She looked at the clock on the classroom wall. It was behind me.

"7AM," she replied. I nodded.

"You've read for four hours straight?" I asked. She nodded. I figured she was up grieving, and read to take her mind off her family. She looked at me for a second.

"Why did you move your sleeping bag?" She asked. I hesitated, thinking as to how I should answer, so I decided to tell the truth.

"I didn't want to come off as a perv," I replied. She smiled.

"You wouldn't have. I probably would have preferred it, actually," she said. I looked at her, confused.

"Why's that?" I asked. She smiled.

"You come across as a comforting figure. I like having you here, and I like having you close, although it's only been a day." I smiled. I was flattered.

"Thanks," I said. I didn't know what else to say, really, nor how to take this information.

She got up and strapped her katana to her belt. I looked at her. "Might I recommend not taking that?" I said. She looked at me confused.

"Garrett." She retained her confused stare. "I told him what happened. He said he won't tell anyone, but I don't want to annoy him further." She looked at the katana, then to me.

"If we wanted to make it up to him, shouldn't we hand them in?" She suggested. I shook my head.

"Then they'd call us on bullshit," I informed her. "If they sniff us out as liars, we don't know what repercussions there'll be." She nodded. She hid her katana under her sleeping bag. I looked around and saw some shelves. I climbed them, and saw a slight gap at the back. I balanced it there, it'd be hard to see, safe and not too obvious. She took my sleeping bag and put it next to hers. Did she really want me to sleep close to her? She looked at me. "If they see positioning changes, they might get suspicious," she said. I nodded. We made our way out of our room, and decided to find Garrett.


End file.
